Great moments on ‘why not both’ history:
“It turns out that more people ride the bus when the trip is free and the service is frequent. At least, that’s the case in Alexandria, where the DASH bus service just set a ridership record, at 4.5 million boardings in just one year.”
https://dcist.com/story/23/08/02/alexandria-free-buses-setting-ridership-records/
@bikepedantic "One ongoing challenge — particularly if DASH continues its record-breaking ridership levels — will be the expanding cost of the city of Alexandria’s subsidy, which could nearly double in a few years." It's unclear to me how continued high ridership and a doubling of the subsidy are linked, but that does sound like a problem. I hope they can figure it out.
@haraldkliems more frequent service means more drivers and maintenance costs.
@2CB Good point about maintenance, which will manifest only over the years. I don't know about more drivers -- they already have the expanded service and so the cost for drivers shouldn't go up going forward.
Fascinating. It's almost as if inconvenience and cost are barriers or something.
@bikepedantic frequent alone would have the same result and then the fares can be put to adding more routes.
@bikepedantic Ditto a free tram in the centre of #Adelaide, South Australia. People moaned about the cost and the roadworks, until it started operating, then it became so popular the line's been extended in three directions. And it's quiet and non-polluting.
@bikepedantic they should try charging fares for driving and see if people are doing that because it's "free"
@bikepedantic
This is great, an example to other similar areas. Here in suburban Chicago there are many large areas of light industry. Distribution centers with huge warehouses employing many people in 3 shifts for packaging, assembly, loading/ unloading trucks, etc. There are also scattered areas of affordable housing where many refugees are settled. They're not close; bus service slim to none. I've given bikes to a few 100 to get to work. They carpool in beater cars. Perfect candidate region.
@bikepedantic Free, good public transportation is something government can do (even if rarely) that capitalism will never do. So as always, fuck libertarians.
@bikepedantic The #FordGovernmentCorruption would never ever do anything for the people it was elected to serve.